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Google Local oddity

So I spotted something a little weird... one of my client's Google Local placements in blended results has the domain name - complete with the .com extension appearing where the business name typically appears:

Businessxyz.com

www. businessxyz .com

# of Google reviews

Has anyone seen this? I setup their Google Places account quite some time ago and used the business name - not the url. I also setup their Google+ and Local page - using the name. None of the page titles on the website contain the url. I simply can not pinpoint where G is pulling this from or why for that matter. All competitors are appearing with business name - only my client has the domain name visible for the particular local search query.

5 Responses

Other than the obvious reply of your client editing the listing to show that . It could have something to do with Google's effort to craft titles depending on what they think is the best fit ( it could be expanding in to Local too ? MY Speculation )

Nope. Fortunately, my client doesn't touch the site and doesn't care to ;-)

It would appear that G's title crafting is applicable to situations where the title is malformed. Not the case here... I formed the titles on-topic, concise, no repetition of keywords and branding at the end.

In spite of the fact that it "looks" strange a midst the competitor's listings, it actually stands-out - especially being in the #1 position. Perhaps we are just one of the "lucky" experimental subjects ;-)

1) There is a citation source that Google is pulling the title from (a directory listing, maybe even an old one, that has the business listed this way).

2) It's a mistake on Google's part. Google does make mistakes.

If you cannot find any citations of the business with the .com used as the business title, and you would like to try to have this rectified, I would recommend reporting the problem through Google's troubleshooter, wait 7 days to see if you get a response, and if not, report it through the Google Business Help Forum.

Thank you for your insight. As a matter of fact, I took a quick look in OSE a short while ago to see if I could pinpoint a citation source formatted the same. I found only one utilizing the domain url (except it contained the http://www prefix and my client's listing does not). I plan to investigate a bit more with a different tool set later. If I find anything interesting, I will let you know.

Hey! Looks like we are neighbors! Fantastic website you have - nice job!

Thanks for the kind compliment, Dino. Sounds like hunting down citations may be your smartest move. Google draws from so many sources and even a little confusion of data can lead to significant problems.

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